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This is the Chancellor's Program.
At his homegoing in November 1997, Dr. Bob Jones, Jr. left
a legacy of lifelong ministry to students as Chancellor and
former President of Bob Jones University. He also left a wealth
of recorded sermons which we now present on the Chancellor's
Program. Today we bring you a message
titled, Our Obligation to Our Fellow Christian, based on Galatians
chapter 6, verse 1 through verse 10. It was delivered during a
daily chapel service held on the campus, August 5th, 1963. Galatians chapter 6. Brethren,
if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore
such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself,
lest you also be tempted. This is the same approach to
a problem regarding a brother that the Lord gives in regard
to the heritage. The word in regard to the heretic
is this, he that is a heretic after the first and second admonition
avoid. If a man's not right doctrinally,
you have under the scriptural obligation to go to him twice
and try to straighten him out. But if after you've gone to him
twice and dealt with him from the word of God, his doctrine
is still not sound, you would avoid it. You're not to just
say, well, this fellow's a heretic and let it go at that. You're
to go first and try to straighten him out. The same thing, I think,
by implication ought to apply to those who disobey the scripture.
Those who disregard the scripture and regard the attitude toward
heretic. We've been accused in this institution
of being against certain men because they break down the lines
between those who believe the word and those who don't. The
people who rebuke us on that say, well, why don't you talk
it over with them? They don't know how much talking we have
done and how much correspondence has gone back and forth. But
the scriptural position is in regard to a heretic, always first
go to him, try to straighten him out. Help him if you can. But then if he's still a heretic,
avoid him. You have to. If you associate
with heretics, heresy will be a contagious thing. You say,
well, I think I'm grounded in the faith. I think I'll keep
the faith. That expression, keep the faith, always is, in a sense,
a misapplied expression. It isn't enough to keep the faith.
A man needs to grow in grace. A fellow said to me, I think
I can go to a modernistic school. I think I'm well grounded. I
think I can keep the faith. I said, that's not enough. You
don't want to just keep the faith. You want to grow in grace and
you want your faith to be deep. When you plant a flower, If you're
a good gardener, you try to get the soil right so the flower
will come to its fullest blossom. You can plant a rose in ordinary
soil, not give it much care, the rose may not die, but it'll
never come to full development and be the kind of rose it would
be if you planted it in the right kind of soil and gave it the
proper care and the proper fertilizer, the proper water, the proper
attention. Now that's exactly the way it should be with your
Christian life. It isn't enough just to keep the faith. You want
to develop the faith till you can be the best possible Christian
in the service of God. And this idea of keeping the
faith, that's not enough. There must be more than keeping
the faith. There must be growth in grace, there must be contention
for the faith, and there must be a propagation of the faith.
All of those are the obligation of the Christian as outlined
in the word of God. You keep the faith, you defend
the faith, and you propagate the faith. By doing all these
things, you grow in grace. We want to provide the kind of
atmosphere here where our students will grow in grace as they go
along. But if you find somebody that's overtaken in a fault,
the thing you do is to try to restore such a one in the spirit
of meekness. That is, realizing that what
he did you might do under the proper circumstances. Don't ever
think you can't fall. No wonder the scripture has so
much to say about, let him that thinks he stand take heed lest
he fall. It's the very hour when you think you're fixed that the
devil's going to overthrow you. It's the very time in life that
you say, well, now everything's settled, that you're going to
find everything's unsettled. Life's like that. No surprise to me
that the Lord says, in such an hour as you think not, the Son
of Man come. Everything in life happens unexpected. And when
you think you are standing, you are suddenly going to find yourself
overthrown. You ought to be aware always of the devil's devices,
not ignorant. If you're ignorant of his devices,
he'll slip up on you and the first thing you know, you'll
fall. I talked to a girl once, terrible sin in her life, wrecked
life, and she said to me, she said, I didn't think this could
ever happen to me. I said, that's why it happened to you. You didn't
think it could. The Bible says, make no provision
for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. If you make a provision
for the flesh, you will fulfill the lust. If you make any allowance
for the flesh, let me tell you, you've got to knock your body
down all the time. You can't ever coddle your own
fleshly desires. If you do, you're sowing to the
flesh, and of the flesh you reap corruption. Now, when anybody
is overtaken in a fault, spiritual person tries to restore such
a one. Now, this is dealing with the personal, individual attitude
of brother for brother. There's a judicial attitude also.
A judge has a son. As a father, it's his duty to
love that son, to care for him. He'll do all he can for the boy,
but if the boy is brought before the court, it's his duty as a
judge to sentence him. If he's violated the law and
deal with him on the same basis, he would any other violator of
the law. Now, this is dealing here with the spiritual approach
of brother to brother, what to do with a brother that's overtaken
in a fault. We have a spiritual responsibility
to you here. We also have a judicial responsibility
in Bob Jones University. We could not afford to keep a
student here who was guilty of certain things, even though he
might be restored. He would still have to suffer
the penalty of the law, but we'd do everything we could to restore
him spiritually. Now, that's the way the Word of God outlines
it. Now, come on from there. There ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfill the law of Christ. Now, what is the law of Christ?
The law of Christ, basically, is the law of love and sacrifice.
The law of Christ is Christ is everything, I'm nothing. He gave
himself for us as he loved us, so we also should love one another.
The sacrifice and the love, and the two always go together. If
you don't sacrifice, you don't love. Let me say that again.
If you don't sacrifice, you don't love. I've known some fellas,
went with a girl, had a deep and passionate involvement for
the girl, but they were very selfish. They didn't love that
girl. They just had a kind of a lustful
desire for the girl. It's not the same thing at all.
True love always is marked by sacrifice. God so loved that
he gave. And without sacrifice, there
is no love. The lover always seeks not what
he can get, but what he can give, the true love. You love somebody,
you're willing to die for them. You don't expect them to die
for you. You see, love suffereth long in this kind. It envieth
not, it vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave
itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, seeks the will and the
best of the other. Now the law of Christ is this,
that as he loved us, so we ought to love one another. As he gave,
so we ought to give. As he endured the cross and despised
the shame, so we ought to be willing to endure whatever cross
is necessary to endure and despise that shame for his sake. That's
the law of Christ. Now, when you bear one another's burden,
you fulfill that law. And unless you bear somebody
else's burden, you're not fulfilling the law of Christ. He bore the
burden of our sins. Now, it's our obligation as Christians
to try to help bear somebody else's burden. Your burden is
the thing that you have to carry. If you add to the load of some
teacher here by not doing your work well, by being late with
your assignments when you don't have to be, by demanding more
time than you need, by being argumentative in class and using
up extra energy for that teacher, by being inattentive and disrespectful. You are not bearing her burden,
you are adding to her burden. Young people, you might as well
face this. Everybody you have to come in contact with, either
you're going to give them something or you're going to take something
from them. Do you ever stop to think about that? If you don't
give, you take. Now, the Christian's idea is
to try to give. I won't put more burden on that
fellow. I'll try to take some of the burden off. And if you
don't try to take something off, you'll add something off. Now,
we're to bear one another's burdens if we fulfill the law of Christ.
You fulfill it in this fashion. Bear ye one another's burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ. The law of Christ is never fulfilled
in a selfish life. There has to be this unselfish
approach. Now, let's go on to the next verse. It's very significant
how this next verse follows this. At first glance, the two seem
unrelated and irrelevant, but there's a very definite relevancy
between these two verses. For if a man think himself to
be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. In other
words, the man who demands a lot, who lets other people carry the
load and expects to be waited on, that man thinks he's something,
but spiritually he's nothing, for the very reason that he's
not making a spiritual contribution. He deceives himself, he doesn't
deceive anybody else. You ever stop to notice in the
Word of God how often the Bible speaks about deceiving yourself?
Let no man deceive himself. It's so easy to be self-deceived. The man who thinks he's something
when he's nothing is not fooling anybody but himself. There's
nothing that's easier to spot than a windbag. A balloon is
always obviously a balloon by its very likeness. And the only
thing that gives the balloon any body is the air inside. You
stick a pin in it, you don't even find the rubber. You let
the air out, and you have a little bit of a wrinkled, dilapidated-looking
little bladder. That's all you have left. There
are some people like that. They fool themselves because
they're all blown up and they look big, but they're so light
that you have to hold them down. A wind would blow them away.
But they feel awfully important. Somebody comes along, sticks
a pin in them, nothing left. There are people like that. You
deceive yourself when you think you're something when you're
nothing. In God's sight, it's always the man who's the servant
that's the man that's of honor. The way down, our founder says,
is the way up. Our Lord is never more kingly
than when he girds himself with a towel to wash the feet of the
disciple. That's the Lord in the in the purpose of his coming
into the world, not to be ministered unto, but to minister. And you
are most Christlike when you are girded with the towel of
service, when you put on the uniform of service. The fellow
that sits around and thinks he's a big shot and expects everybody
to wait on him, that fellow's nothing, but he's not fooling
anybody but himself. I've had the pleasure of knowing a great
many preachers. I have also known a great many
preachers. I put it that way advisedly. Some preachers I've
known, many preachers, it's been a great pleasure to know. But
I've just known some other preachers and it's been no pleasure to
know. But I have never yet known a great preacher that he wasn't
a humble man. I've never known a great man,
used of God or apart from God's will, successful in business
or life, that he wasn't basically a considerate, humble man. Now,
he may be preoccupied sometimes. He may be so busy that he doesn't
have all the time he'd need, but the man himself, like that,
is always considerate of his employees. He's always an easy
man, and you get to know him. He doesn't think he's anything.
Humility is the mark of greatness. If you haven't got that, you're
nothing but a blown-up blout. You deceive yourself, you deceive
nobody else. All right, let's go on for the
next verse here. But let every man prove his own work. You prove your own work by bearing
other people's burdens. You see, if you don't carry your
share of it, you're adding to the burden. My dad used that
illustration, this next verse here about let every man bear
his own burden, how when you carry a log and a log rolling,
you put a pole under. Each man gets a hold of one side
of the pole, six or eight men to a log, and you all carry it
together. But if one man doesn't carry his full share, it adds
to the load of the other. Now you prove your own work,
and then he shall have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in
another. You rejoice in yourself as you
prove your work. You don't have to then rejoice
in what somebody else has done, but you can rejoice in what you've
done as you've proved your work by helping somebody else. For
every man shall bear his own burden. Now, let him that's taught
in the scripture communicate freely to him that teaches. That
is, let the man that's taught pay for what he gets. That word
communicate doesn't simply mean tell the teacher something. I
know some students think that's what it means. Let him that's
taught communicate with him that teaches. You yak and talk so
much he doesn't get a chance to teach. You tell him instead
of letting him tell you. That's not what it means. It
means that the man who preaches the Word of God and the man who
teaches the Scripture should be rewarded for his ministry
by those who are taught. Again, it's a case of bearing
a burden, see. If the man has the burden of the ministry, you
help to bear the burden as you pay him for his preaching. The
laborer is worthy of his hire. You don't preach for that. But
a man who is taught the Word of God, we are told the man who
preaches should live by the Word of God that he preaches. Be not deceived, God is not mocked.
For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For
he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption,
but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life
everlasting." Isn't it interesting that this verse, which we use
so often here dealing with gross sins, is injected right in this
very connection here where gross sins are not being mentioned,
but the respectable sin of looking out for oneself and doing all
one can instead of helping the brother. But that's sowing to
the flesh. You sow to the flesh when you
commit adultery. You also sow to the flesh when you push ahead
of somebody else. When you take the easy course and lie down
on the job, you're sowing to the flesh. You reap corruption
from that just as surely as you reap corruption from drunkenness
or uncleanness or any other sin. It's all the flesh. Let's get
it straight, young folks. When the Bible speaks of the
flesh, it does not mean only the gross sins. It doesn't mean
only lust and drunkenness. and those dope addiction and
those things that involve the body solely. It means anything
that makes allowance for the care of the body and the desires
of the human will over the spiritual and the divine will. You sow
to the flesh when you keep your mouth shut in order to make friends
of some man, so you'll get something out of him. when you ought to
speak out boldly in the defense of the gospel with a testimony
that is so into the flesh. And that brings its own particular
corruption. Of course the gross sins corrupt
the body. The soul that sinneth it shall die. But it's interesting
that this verse is given here not in connection with gross
sins, but in connection with this business of coddling oneself
at the expense of other people. And let us not be weary in well-doing. Don't sow to the flesh, you'll
reap corruption. But don't grow weary in well-doing, for in due
season we shall reap if we faint not. I was thinking last night
about ten o'clock when we had a lot of problems on us. Boy,
you know, this gets pretty tiresome. And then this verse came to mind
and I felt rebuked. You must never grow weary in
well-doing. You don't do it for the reward,
but the reward comes. But you have to wait. Some people
want the reward now. The reward hereafter, too, the
reward comes in due season. What would you think of a farmer
that went out and planted the crop, came back the next day
and sat down, didn't do anything to weed the field or hoe it,
just sat back and said, well, there's no crop. I'm tired. No, all through the summer he
looks after the crop, and the harvest comes in the due season.
You can't afford to grow weary anywhere along the line. If you
do, there won't be any harvest. The reward comes in due season
if you faint not. You faint, there's no reward.
The farmer that stops before the crop's completely headed
up and gathered, he won't have any crop, he'll have weeds. You
have to do it. If you faint on the way, there
isn't anything. There's many a man that's going to have no
reward at all because he didn't go quite all the way. It isn't
enough to start out good. How much the Bible has to say
about the man that puts his hand to the plow and looks back is
not worthy of the king. If you love father, a mother,
a wife, a child more than you love me, you have no reward.
Don't just start off good. I know lots of folks that are
good starters, but they're awfully poor finishers. I'd rather see
a fella be a poor starter than a good finisher. There's one
thing I do love, it's a good repenter. A fella messes things
up as long as he repents that's hopeful. It's these hard fellows
that don't repent, there's no hope for them. But I do love
to see a fellow finish well. You can start off big and get
out of wind. I've seen them many a time. You
ever go to a track meet and watch them all start off? Boy, the
fellow that's way ahead of all the rest of them, sometimes about
the second lap around, he gets a pain in his side and he goes
over and sits down. He's out of the race. Some fellow
that starts off real slow, maybe, He doesn't have very good form
in the beginning. You think, boy, he'll never make it. He
arrives. You know, the tortoise and the hare. The hare was a
good start, but the tortoise won the race because he didn't
grow weary. The hare, you know, lay down.
Hare's a rabbit, in case you don't know. Maybe some of you
folks have always wondered about that. The tortoise is a turtle.
You might call it the fable of the rabbit and the turtle. That
means more to some of you folks. The turtle finished. The rabbit
went to sleep, he grew weary, and well do. As we have therefore opportunity,
let us do good unto all men, but especially unto them which
are of the household of faith. Here again we set in the word
of God, we find set forth that proper order in which everything
is to be done. You are to bear things honorable in the sight
of all men, but you have a special obligation to the fellow Christian.
You must be absolutely fair and honorable, do all you can in
all of your dealings with the ungodly. But you have a special
obligation to a fellow Christian. A man has an obligation to his
family that he doesn't have to his business associates. The
man you buy groceries from, you have an obligation to pay him,
pay your bill, treat him honorably. See that when you take the things
out through the counter, you don't slip something in your
pocket. You have to be honorable in your dealings with your gross.
But you have more than that kind of an obligation with your family.
You have the obligation of your family to provide for them, to
bring in the money to buy the groceries for them. Your obligation
to your people that work for you is different from your obligation
to the people that you do business with casually. Now, so it is
in the Christian life. You have an obligation to all
men. You must do good to them. But we must especially do good
to the household of faith. You know, friends, one way I
would know that this ecumenical compromise breakdown is unscriptural
if for no other reason is the fact that it violates this one
verse of scripture here. They have so much love for the
martyrs, and they have nothing but unkindness for the brethren.
That's abnormal and perverted. You want to be kind to the ungodly,
do whatever good you can for them, but you have an obligation
especially to be loving to the brethren. And when they defend
the modernists and criticize the brethren, there's something
wrong. Well, Paul's next verse is, see what a long letter I've
written. Well, I haven't preached a very long sermon. In fact,
I haven't even dealt with but a few verses of Paul's letter.
I suggest you go home and read the rest of it. It's a good book,
one worthy of our attention in these days, shall we pray. Our
Heavenly Father, we pray that you give us a well-balanced approach
to life. We know, Lord, if it's scriptural,
it will be well-balanced. For no man can walk in the light
of God's Word and fall into darkness. And the Word is the light to
our feet, the lamp to our feet, the light to our path. So, Lord,
help us to walk in the light of the Word. Forgive us our selfishness,
Lord, so easy to be selfish. So easy to sit back when we ought
to get up. So easy to keep the chair when
there's somebody there that's old that we ought to get up and
give the chair to. So easy to think of everything from the
standpoint of our own wishes and our own ease and our own
comfort. But help us, Lord, to be like Christ, who, being God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet he made himself
no reputation. Help us, Lord, to be willing
to be servants one of another, and so fulfill the law of Christ,
we pray it in his blessed name. Amen. You've heard a message
by Dr. Bob Jones, Jr., who during the
latter part of his life served as chancellor of Bob Jones University. This message, our obligation
to our fellow Christian, was recorded August 5, 1963. Copies are available from two
sources. You may order a cassette copy from the campus store, Bob
Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina, 29614. Enclose
$7 for cassette, tax, and postage. Or visit the station's website,
wmuu.com. Listen each week at this time
for the Chancellor's Program, sponsored by Bob Jones University.
Our Obligation to our Fellow Christian
| Sermon ID | 62501162144 |
| Duration | 23:07 |
| Date | |
| Category | Radio Broadcast |
| Bible Text | Galatians 6:1-10 |
| Language | English |
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